


I Thought I Lost You

by Lunar_L



Series: L'âge de L'amour [16]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, Identity Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 19:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15691584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunar_L/pseuds/Lunar_L
Summary: Ladybug shows up to the first patrol with Chat since he ran away from Marinette





	I Thought I Lost You

**Author's Note:**

> There's more Ladybug than Marinette in this which is a bit odd for a MariChat May prompt but it's kinda relevant and necessary to the story

“No more patrols for you until you Sort. This. Out,” Ladybug said abruptly.

Chat looked around suddenly at the sound of her stern words as if he had forgotten she was sitting on the same rooftop next to him. He just stared for a moment and Ladybug contemplated waving a hand in front of his face for a moment until he blinked and confirmed he was still there. She watched as he seemed to get over the initial shock of her voice before he seemed to consider her words. After a moment though, he simply returned to staring out across the city without really looking at anything, his face withdrawn and empty. “Sort what out?” he asked morosely.

Ladybug was not impressed with that answer and she stared at him with a deadpan expression to convey it, although the effect was in jeopardy of dissolving into tears if she didn’t distract herself soon. Internally, she was ready to combust and she wasn’t entirely sure if it was from anger or misery. She wanted to do something about this. Didn’t he? Why hadn’t he been by the bakery to see her yet?

It had been over a week since Chat had visited Marinette and taken a sudden dislike to first a single plushie and then a drawer full of gifts. She still didn’t regret standing up to him for his jealousy but she had since admitted to herself that bringing her feelings for Adrien into the argument had been a mistake. Chat might have acted badly when he became jealous but ultimately it had come from a place of insecurity. If the argument had stayed on track and they had addressed his behaviour, she was sure he would have realised how unfair he was being and apologised to her. Then she could have reassured him that she was never going to abandon him for someone else. Instead, she had basically admitted that she was torn between two boys and hurt him badly enough that he couldn’t even contemplate talking about it. Her mind was a mess of what if’s and if only’s. She always felt a little sick now thinking about it and other than the strange ache in her chest, the way he had run out had left her feeling unnaturally numb. She had to talk to him to get rid of this hollowness inside her; she needed to find a way to feel again. Even if it didn’t go the way she hoped it would, the devastation and raw pain to follow would surely be better than being so empty.

“You know I pass through the 21st arrondissement a lot in my real life?” she tried to say without her voice trembling. While technically not a lie since she did live there, bending the truth made her even more uncomfortable and she fidgeted in place, looking out across Paris towards where home lay. She’d already hurt him by being overly truthful and now she was setting him up to be hurt by her lies whenever he eventually learned that Marinette and Ladybug were one and the same. She could see him turn to watch her patiently in her peripheral vision so she swallowed down her worries for later and continued. “One spot in particular. There’s a girl who lives there. One I know that you know because I’ve sent you to protect her before and-” -she gulped- “who has been spending every night crying and shouting for you on her balcony for days now. Her neighbours and parents must be so confused.”

It wasn’t entirely true and again the ache in her chest throbbed. It was true that she had cried a lot despite her numbness and the first few days she had shouted for him. But that had been more of a whisper-shout, knowing his advanced hearing would pick it up if he was anywhere nearby and a louder shout would only draw attention if he did appear. It had still been loud enough that a few people from the street had given her a funny look once or twice and her mother had acted especially attentive in the mornings after she had been vocal. It had been in the same way she used to treat her in earlier years when Marinette had been bullied particularly badly and was visibly upset. But she would just have to put aside the worry that her mother knew  _something_  for another time.

Looking away, Chat gave a strange smile beside her. It clearly wasn’t an expression that showed he was happy or glad in any way -the smile didn’t reach his eyes- but there was still a hint of amusement there somehow. Like seeing a funny animal video when you were still emotionally devastated after just failing an important test, only the effect was amplified. “I forgot you sent me to protect her from Evillustrator,” he said quietly, “Makes sense.”

“Huh?” she said, unable to articulate better with her current unrest.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head a little and letting his face relax back to a neutral state, “I’ll explain later but right now I should probably go and see her.” He was on his feet and vaulting from the rooftop before Ladybug managed to uncross her legs and she cursed gently under her breath. It was unlikely she could beat him back since he was going there directly, but she might be able to stall him from jumping to conclusions about where she had gone until she could figure out a way to switch places with herself.

* * *

She found him sitting on her balcony railing a few minutes later as expected, gazing blindly at the trapdoor leading to her darkened room.

“I was worried so I followed you,” she breathed out quickly, “but I didn’t want to interrupt anything so I wasn’t going to let you see me till I realised that she was out and then I-”

“I know it’s you, Marinette.”

She stopped talking instantly and the ache in her chest began to burn and spread out to her extremities as her mind switched off in panic. “What? I-I don’t…” She trailed off as he looked at her and the enormity of his pain hit her, painted across his face gently like flickering light reflecting off the surface of water and yet so much an obvious part of him it might as well have been tattooed there. And right there amongst the pain was a certainty. Not a hunch or a guess. He  _knew_.

She backed off to the wall of the building to give herself more cover from the street below before she dropped her transformation, the soft pink light illuminating them both. Tikki landed easily in her cupped palms but barely rested there before she flew up to place her small arm against Marinette’s cheek in a show of support. Her little friend then phased through the trapdoor glass with only a moment spared to send a small sad glance at Chat upon his perch as he watched her leave.

“How? When?” Marinette said, watching the tips of her shoes move as she wiggled her toes in nervous anticipation of his answers.

“When you showed me the gifts during our argument,” he said in an unnaturally level voice, no trace of any obvious emotion that she could detect. She glanced up to meet his eyes as he spoke. “I saw your Kwami among the toys. I thought she was just a plushie at the time…but later, when I was upset and reliving the whole thing over and over, I realised what she was. That she wasn’t much smaller than Plagg and that she didn’t look like your typical soft toy. That she looked more like I’d expect Ladybug’s Kwami to.”

Tikki must have used the drawer as her hiding place when Chat had arrived that night. She hadn’t even noticed she was there herself, but then she’d been distracted and was used to seeing Tikki around enough that the little bug sometimes became background to her when she was distracted. “How much later was later?” she asked shakily.

He winced a little before answering. “I knew something was wrong a few hours after I got home, but I didn’t know what. It took me a couple of days to figure it out. Seems pretty stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” she said.

They’d both gone so quiet she could hear the rustling of one of her plants as the sudden breeze swept through its leaves.

“No matter how you feel, I’m glad you know now,” she suddenly said, her uneasiness turning her to full-on ramble mode, “I thought I’d lost you and you would never come back so I’d never get to apologise as Marinette but I’d still have to see you as Ladybug and then I’d have to pretend everything was normal when it  _so_  wasn’t and then we wouldn’t work as partners either ‘cause I’d be so weird around you but I’d never be able to tell you what was wrong and-”

He had moved away from the railing at the sound of her garbled attempt at communication and gripped her shoulders, effectively cutting her off as she snapped out of it to look up at him. He lifted a hand and brushed his thumb across her cheek. She was surprised to find it damp after he pulled it back. She hadn’t realised she had been crying.

“It’s late,” he said, “but we need to talk. Can I come inside?”

She nodded vigorously in response as the silent tears continued to fall.

**Author's Note:**

> There'll be one more part to finish L'âge de L'amour but I'm not going to use a prompt for it because none of them really work for me


End file.
